Chapter 4
Hunter took the wave runner out far enough that the helicopter wouldn’t spot it from the air. Then, he swung toward the southern end of the island.
Savvie held on tightly around his waist as they skimmed across swells and some white-capped waves.
He found he liked how her body molded to his, leaning when he leaned, their movements like one.
The woman was strong, determined and fearless.
He found himself wanting to know more about her. Mostly, he wanted to know what made someone as beautiful as Savvie become an assassin and where would she go from here?
Though his thoughts swirled around the woman pressed against his back, he maintained situational awareness, looking ahead for boat lights, determined to steer clear of harbor police and coastguard vessels. He stayed well out to sea.
All the while, he kept the lights of Miami Beach in sight until they rounded the pier at the southern tip of the island, skimmed past another island and turned toward downtown Miami.
Hunter aimed for what he thought might be a park, knowing most boat docks would have security cameras and locked gates. He drove the wave runner up onto a narrow sliver of sand and shut off the engine, glad they’d had enough fuel to make it as far as they had.
Savvie hopped off and stretched.
He missed her arms around him and the warmth of her body.
Hunter pulled out his cell phone and sent their location to Stone.
Moments later, he received a response.
Stone: ETA ten mikes
“Apparently, he wasn’t delayed at the roadblocks,” Hunter commented as he showed the text to Savvie.
She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. “That’s good news in an otherwise shitshow of a night.”
Together, they pushed the wave runner up into the shelter of the trees. Once they’d hidden their escape vehicle, they made their way through the park, past picnic tables and a playground to the street on the other side.
Hunter stopped in the shadow of a tree where they could see the street, but others wouldn’t see them. He was soaked through to his skin and sticky with salt water. Thankfully, he’d packed a change of clothes in the backpack he’d left aboard the plane.
Savvie paced within the shadows, her jeans and T-shirt clinging to her body.
She ran her fingers through her damp hair in an attempt to comb through the tangles.
Finally, she gave up with a sigh and stood still, staring at the road.
Whenever a vehicle passed, her body tensed. She looked ready to run.
A Miami police car slowed in front of the park.
Hunter’s breath caught and held.
He and Savvie remained perfectly still, knowing any movement might draw attention to the shadows beneath the tree.
After an agonizingly long moment, the patrol car drove on.
Savvie’s shoulders sagged.
“Who was he?” Hunter kept his voice low enough that if she didn’t want to answer, she could pretend she hadn’t heard him.
Silence stretched between them.
He figured she didn’t want to answer the question or wasn’t at liberty to share that information.
“Marcus Caldwell,” she finally said. “A trust-fund prick who ran out of money and went into human trafficking to fund his playboy lifestyle.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have contacted Kyla.”
“She was coming whether you’d texted her your location or not.” He chuckled. “Stone barely got her to stay put and let us go in without her.”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant. I’d have found a way out.”
“Probably, but you had a lot of people looking for you. Law enforcement and others.” He leaned against the tree and studied her silhouette. “Were those some of Caldwell’s thugs?”
Savvie shrugged. “Probably. His family is Miami’s mafia. They believe in retribution, no matter how deplorable the family member has become. My error was being seen. I got sloppy.”
“How so?”
“I was supposed to go in, drop him and get out. Only I let him get the upper hand. It took me longer to drop him when he had me by the throat, choking the living daylights out of me.” She raised her hand to her neck.
“Damned sloppy. It gave his two transfer agents—aka thugs—time to get to the penthouse.”
“I’m surprised you made it out.”
“Yeah. Me, too,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. Any other woman would have been traumatized by the evening’s events.
No, any other woman would have succumbed to the drugs and been carried out by Caldwell’s thugs.
“Where to from here?” he asked.
Savvie shrugged. “I’d planned to retire and take up knitting or fishing in a small town no one’s ever heard of. Maybe get a normal job that doesn’t involve the lethal use of guns and knives.”
“Sounds…” He tilted his head.
“Boring?” She laughed. “I could stand boring.”
“How…” Hunter struggled for the right words.
“How did a girl like me get into a profession like this?” She shook her head. “I wanted to join the military, but my juvenile record held me up at Military Entrance Processing Station.”
“MEPS,” Hunter said. “I’m familiar.”
She turned toward him. “Prior military?” she asked.
“Army. Thirteen years.”
“That’s a lot of years to walk away from,” she noted.
“Eleven deployments in the last six years.”
She shot a glance in his direction. “Special operations?”
“Delta Force.”
“The best of the rest,” she said softly.
“That was the sales pitch I bought into.” Hook, line and sinker. He’d worked hard to get in and trained hard to stay alive.
“Specialty?”
“Sniper.”
“Then you know what it’s like to put a target on a living, breathing human.” She spoke so softly he had to lean closer to hear her words.
He did know.
She faced the road again. “I bet your family got tired of you being away from home.”
“No family. No home.” He’d sold the house and given Liz all the money in their account, plus the furniture in the divorce. “I wasn’t stateside long enough for any kind of commitment.”
“Then why leave the Army?” she asked.
“We lost so many of our own. Men I considered brothers. I didn’t see that anything we did made a difference. I’d take out a Taliban leader, and five more took his place.”
She nodded. “Doesn’t give you much hope for humanity, does it?”
“No, it didn’t. But I’m not ready to give up on mankind. Doesn’t sound like you’re ready to give up, either.”
“I’m hoping a different career path will help change my outlook,” she said. “If I get the opportunity to try.”
“Worried about the Caldwell mafia?”
“For sure.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “And maybe others.”
“From prior…”
“Hits?” she offered.
His lips twitched. “I was going to say missions.”
“Possibly,” she said. “I expect some opposition to my retirement.”
“You mean your organization turning on you?” he asked.
“It happened to Kyla.”
“From what we discovered, a bad agent was involved in her case.”
“There was. But who’s to say he was the only one?
” She rolled her neck and shoulders. “Aside from a bad agent, the powers that be in my chain of command might not let me go because I know too much about some unsolved murders of domestic and foreign individuals. If I talk about a secret US government-run organization playing God and determining who gets to live and who dies, they won’t be happy.
” She rocked back on her heels. “Surely they realize I can’t spill the beans on any of those targets, or I could go to jail for murder. ”
“Unless you go for a plea bargain. A get-out-of-jail-free card for information about the people calling the shots.”
“They’d have the court system in their pockets.”
“But not the media.”
Savvie sighed. “I don’t want to blow up the internet in an exposé about a secret organization of assassins. I want out of the drama and away from this way of life. I want to fade into the background.”
“Sweetheart, you’re too pretty to fade into any background.”
She turned to face him, her eyebrows forming a V over her nose. “Did that punch to your jaw rattle your gray matter?”
He grinned. “Not actually. It reminded me to appreciate the finer things in life.”
“Like yachts and expensive vacations?”
“No,” he said. “Like a colorful sunset, a drive through the Rocky Mountains after a rain shower and a beautiful woman with a killer right uppercut.” He rubbed his jaw, wincing when he touched the bruise.
“Sorry,” she said. “For all I knew, you were just another one of Caldwell’s minions.”
“I get it. I don’t hold a grudge.” He studied her for a moment. “I know you want out of the organization, but what baffles me is how you joined it in the first place. You were about to tell me when you were discussing your experience with MEPS.
Savvie stared at the road as if looking ahead took her into the past. “You know how they check your physical and mental capabilities?”
He nodded.
Savvie wrapped her arms around her middle, holding tighter. “They performed a background check on me and dug up some information that concerned them enough to deny my entry into the Army. I was told to pack my shit and go home.”
Hunter frowned, wanting to know what information they’d discovered about her. He didn’t ask, didn’t offer his opinion or advice. Instead, he waited for Savvie to continue.
“I was sitting in the small briefing area where they’d informed me I wasn’t a good fit for the Army when a man in black jeans and a dark leather jacket strode in, questioned me for a few minutes about my past, my desires for the future and my ability to follow instructions.
He left for a few minutes. When he came back, he offered me a position in his organization. ”
“Did he tell you what that position would be?”
She stiffened. “I didn’t care. If it got me out of my hometown, that’s all that mattered.
I didn’t have a college education. Not that it mattered.
A background check would have red-flagged me for any potential employer.
The military was really my only hope. And then it wasn’t.
” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I took the only job offered to me. If not for rooming with Kyla during our training, I might not have even gone as far as I did.”